Young Swedes are not allowed to vote until they are 18, and they cannot buy alcohol until they are 20, but plans are now being made to allow children as young as 12 years old to apply to have their legal gender changed.

Yes, the report actually says, "No one should have to go through any kind of medical or psychological treatment..." Nowhere in the report was there any mention of the suicide risk or any other negative aspects of mutilating healthy adolescents. The purpose of the investigation seems to be to pave the way for new legislation, not on the best interests of the children.

Activists are allowed to use the classrooms to propagandize against so-called heteronormativity and to promote all kinds of sexual expressions -- except heterosexuality. One cannot but wonder if this school campaign has led to a record number of kids seeking treatment for gender dysphoria.

"When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings." — Paul R. McHugh, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Although Swedes are shocked that many immigrant girls are subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), the Swedish government plans to allow hospitals to cut away the perfectly healthy genitals of children who believe they belong to the opposite sex. In 2011, a Swedish study done by Karolinska Institutet showed that the suicide rate among post-op transgender people is far higher than that of the general population. Other studies show that 70%-80% of kids suffering from gender dysphoria lose these feelings after a few years.

In 2014, it was revealed that about 60 girls in Norrköping had been subjected to FGM. In a class of newly arrived Somali refugees, all 30 girls had been mutilated, 28 of them through the most brutal kind of FGM, infibulation: cutting off the clitoris and the labia, then sewing together the edges of the vulva to prevent sexual intercourse. School Health Services discovered the abuse by asking the girls questions -- a measure initiated by the government and led by individuals who evidently want to eliminate FGM. There is good reason to suspect that Somali girls -- and other girls born in Sweden -- are being genitally mutilated during trips to their parents' homelands.

Yet despite loud protests against this cruel and un-Swedish practice, the government seems to be planning to legislate in favor of another kind of genital mutilation of children: Sex-change operations, or to use a more politically correct term "gender reassignment surgery" (GRS). [1]

Young Swedes are not allowed to vote until they are 18, and they cannot buy alcohol until they are 20, but plans are now being made to allow children as young as 12 years old to apply to change their legal gender. This would allow children to be identified on all legal documents, ID cards and passports as belonging to a gender different from the one they were born with. In addition, according to an official report commissioned by the Swedish government, "Legal sex and medical sex change," authored by the Committee on the Age Limit for Approval of a Change of Gender, the process of obtaining permission to have a legal gender change and/or sex-change operation should be swift.

The report states:

"The process of changing your legal gender should be swift, simple and transparent. Further, it is important that the laws regulating the legal change do not make any direct or indirect demands that the person is treated medically in order to receive a legal gender change. No one should have to go through any kind of medical or psychological treatment, process or test related to gender identity."

Yes, the report actually says, "No one should have to go through any kind of medical or psychological treatment..." -- as if it is a bad thing to make sure it is not harmful for children to tamper with their gender identity or have their genitals removed. If this planned legislation passes, it would mean that if a child has the consent of his or her parents, no examination of the child will be required in order to receive the new identification papers.

To allow healthcare professionals to evaluate if the child does, in fact, have the "wrong" gender -- or is suffering from a mental disorder, or has been influenced by "trendy" parents -- is labeled, in the report, "coercion." Under existing legislation, the report laments, in order to change one's gender identity, "the individual is forced to contact healthcare services."

The report completely ignores the conclusions of the 2011 Karolinska Institutet study, which stated:

"Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

In Sweden, improving psychiatric care is apparently not an option. On the contrary -- the report refers to an article published 15 years ago in Läkartidningen, the official magazine of the Swedish Medical Association, which states:

"A person with gender dysphoria is said to suffer from a disrupted gender identity. It is not possible to change a person's gender identity. Rather, the only solution available is to make the person's body resemble the perceived sex as much as possible, which entails hormonal and surgical gender correction. Gender reassignment is, at present, the best help available for transsexuals and persons with gender dysphoria."

However, what the Committee ignored is that the Läkartidningen article also clearly states that a comprehensive investigation must be conducted before someone is allowed a sex change. An electroencephalogram (EEG), a sex chromatin determination and a brain scan of the pituitary area are all recommended. The Läkartidningen article further warns that some people who perceive themselves as belonging to the opposite sex may be schizophrenics suffering from delusions -- a condition that should be treated with antipsychotic medication.

The current report by the Committee, on the other hand, focuses completely, in every way, on accommodating people who perceive themselves as having "the wrong sex." Considering the government's apparent view of the issue, maybe that view is not so strange. Erik Ullenhag, who was then minister responsible for LGBT-issues, stated on January 1, 2014 to the daily Svenska Dagbladet:

"I can see that we need to change the age-limit on legal gender change. To a 15- or 16-year-old, one year can be a very long time relative to how you are feeling. But there are conflicts we need to sort out, such as what happens if a 16-year-old has one opinion and the parents another."

The Committee and its report that followed was part of the "LGBT strategy" by the government of that time, and was the first Committee of its kind. The belief that such a strategy was needed, was the result of many years of intensive lobbying by the gay-rights organization, the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL).

A year later, in January 2015, the Committee concluded its report and handed it over to the new Minister for Health and Social Affairs, Gabriel Wikström. Nowhere in the report is there any mention of the suicide risk or any other negative aspects of mutilating healthy adolescents. The purpose of the Committee seems to have been to pave the way for new legislation, not to safeguard the best interests of the children.

15-year-olds should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to change their legal gender.

15-year-olds should be allowed to have a sex-change operation, with their parents' consent.

12-year-olds should be allowed to change their legal gender, with their parents' consent.

In cases where only one of a child's parents consents to having their 12-year-old daughter regarded officially as a boy, or having their 15-year-old son's penis amputated, while the other parent is opposed, the report recommends that the authorities should have the power to overrule the opposing parent:

"If the youth has two legal guardians, both must consent to the procedure in question. To avoid having disputes between guardians affecting the youth, we suggest a legal amendment. This suggested amendment seeks to give Social Services the power to decide that permission can be given without one guardian's approval, if that is in the best interest of the child." [Author's emphasis.]

The Committee apparently sees no problems at all with this; the only difficulty noted in the report is "that the youth actively chooses to go against the social norms and ideas prevalent in heteronormative society." They assume that parents who do not want their kids to cut away perfectly healthy genitals are bad parents who do not understand what is for their children's own good. There is not a single line in the report to suggest the Committee gave any thought to the possibility that children who want to change gender might just be passing through just a phase, or having psychological problems, or having problems at home or might later regret such a drastic, irreversible act.

Some critics of the current proposals argue that transsexualism is a kind of mental disorder. Paul R. McHugh, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, has studied people claiming to be transsexuals for 40 years, during 26 of which he served Psychiatrist-in-Chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. McHugh is extremely critical of sex-change in general, and even more so when it comes to children. He has said that changing gender is biologically impossible, and that people who undergo gender reassignment surgery do not become the other sex, but rather "they become feminized men or masculinized women."

According to McHugh, people who promote sex-change operations are in fact guilty of encouraging and facilitating mental disorders:

"This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

"The transgendered suffer a disorder of 'assumption' like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature -- namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight."

The Johns Hopkins Hospital, after pioneering sex change operations on the 1960s, discovered that they did not lead to any significant advantages in reality, so in the 1970s they stopped performing the surgery. Most of the people who had the operation were "satisfied," but still had problems; the team decided that the result simply did not justify amputating normal organs.

"Our efforts, though, had little influence on the emergence of this new idea about sex, or upon the expansion of the number of 'transgendered' among young and old.

...

"Over that time, I've watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways. A rare issue of a few men -- both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they were erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women -- has spread to include women as well as men. Even young boys and girls have begun to present themselves as of the opposite sex. Over the last ten or fifteen years, this phenomenon has increased in prevalence, seemingly exponentially. Now, almost everyone has heard of or met such a person."

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL), has grown into the country's most powerful lobbying organization -- by far -- during the last few years. Moreover, unlike the United States, where strict rules regulate lobbying organizations and how they are allowed to influence decision makers, in Sweden it is the government itself that finances the RFSL. The state, municipalities and authorities give tens of millions of kronor to the RFSL every year -- money the organization then uses to influence the very same state, municipalities and authorities that pay them. No one knows how much money we are talking about, because the RFSL is a nonprofit organization that does not fall under the "Principle of Public Access" to official documents, and they refuse to disclose how much money they are getting in government grants.

Since 2008, the RFSL has increased its income by selling so-called "HBT Certifications": courses for people working in libraries, health clinics, municipalities and so on. It is nearly impossible for an outsider to gain insight into what is being taught in these courses, but several participants have told this author that it is all about getting everyone to "think the same way." The RFSL demands that every single staff member take the course for a workplace to be certified, and every other year the certification needs to be done all over again – generating yet more revenue for the RFSL.

Last year, Dispatch Internationalrevealed that after certifying workplaces, the RFSL also appoints a few people in each workplace to act as informants. Then, if an employee tells an inappropriate gay joke by the water cooler, that person is immediately reported to the RFSL, which may take action against the employer -- who, in turn, may reprimand or fire the employee.

The RFSL has virtually free access to all of Sweden's schools. RFSL activists are allowed to use classrooms to propagandize against so-called heteronormativity, and promote all other kinds of sexual expressions -- except heterosexuality. As children are suggestible, one cannot but wonder if this school campaign is the cause of the record number of children seeking treatment for gender dysphoria at the Astrid Lindgren Children's Hospital in Stockholm. Administrators there estimate that 100 gender dysphoric children will come to them for help this year – three times as many as in 2013.

In an article published in The Wall Street Journal, Professor McHugh writes that "[w]hen children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings." There are also treatments that aim to make the children feel comfortable with their biological sex, instead of fueling their gender dysphoria. Psychologist and gender identity specialist Ken Zucker at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada, provides just such a treatment. His clinic, too, has seen a steady rise in the number of children suffering confusion about their gender.

In 2008, Zucker's clinic published a study on 25 girls who had come there as children; only 12% still had gender dysphoria as adults. The same statistics apply to boys. According to Zucker, when the children see therapists and others who assume that they actually belong to the opposite sex, the children can actually be led into a gender dysphoric identity.

The Swedish government may thus be on the way to leading thousands of children into gender confusion and unnecessary surgery, the outcome of which is rarely good. The Committee's report is now being studied by the relevant authorities, whose comments will be compiled in November. After that, the Swedish government will decide on how to proceed with its recommendations.

While Gatestone Institute stands by the articles written for it to date by Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone is no longer affiliated with her in any way.

[1] Transsexualism is not to be confused with DSD, Disorders of Sex Development, a medical condition in which a child is born with ambiguous genitalia. About 5-10 children with some kind of genital anomaly are born each year in Sweden, and the goal is always to determine the child's gender as soon as possible. Surgery is performed at an appropriate time.

It seems the inmates truly are running the asylum. This insanity is spreading like the plague in all Western countries. One of the many problems with this particular issue is the fact that the trans is under the same umbrella as homosexual (LGBT). Where it has been considered wrong to try to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality, this is now being applied to trans youth, as though any counselling and recognition of other factors that may be influencing such confusion is called cruel conversion therapy. When in fact the situations are quite different, and in fact many non-gender-conforming youth simply grow up to be homosexuals. The Canadian quoted in this article, last I heard, was being forced to change their approach calling counselling of confused youth "conversion therapy".

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Carolyn • Nov 3, 2015 at 13:26

And in Belgium children have the option of assisted suicide.

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Mark Matthias • Nov 3, 2015 at 11:53

Of course, why not -- in this climate of divine abandon?The progression from bad to worse is not a mystery. First the institutionalization of homosexuality shocked everyone; then the LGBT surfaced with fists raised at the status quo; pedophilia took a stand following the same modus operandi.

Although we know these things must happen, as prophecy repeatedly forecast the lawlessness that would overtake the world; yet, it is still mind boggling to witness regardless of the psychological preparation to expect it.

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Harvey • Nov 3, 2015 at 10:57

I have been puzzled for a while the way Sweeden is going as regards migrants etc. After reading this all I can say is that they deserve their migrants, a lot of which are radical. This is socialism gone extreme though I am not suprised.

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David Fieldman • Nov 2, 2015 at 20:58

This is a really sick country. Given what they are doing to their children; what they are permitting to occur to their women (Rape; permitting the hordes of illegal immigrants (terrorists) to take over their country), they nonetheless continue their unfounded and illogical persecution of Julian Assange.

Bizarre to say the least.

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Zeit Geist • Nov 2, 2015 at 18:43

It had to be Sweden, didn't it? It should have been obvious to any rational individual that the militant homosexual and radical left pressure groups in society were not merely hoping to persuade society to accept homosexual behaviour, or for homosexuals to be allowed to openly follow a homosexual lifestyle, because having achieved this they went on to demand more and more concessions toward changing the default attitude of society toward sexuality, ie. heterosexual societal norms. It is, in my opinion, part of a much wider attack on traditional society via sexuality.

The demands and actions of these groups has expanded into very diverse areas, such as the acceptance by society, or at least by the state, of a form of same sex "marriage", the normalising of bi-sexuality, "transgender" behaviour," cross dressing" and of course the acceptance into society of the ability, indeed right, of an individual to alter their gender, permanently, at will. (obviously a man can never actually, biologically become a woman and vice versa)

Unless there is definite physical or biological evidence to suggest that one's sex is somehow misaligned with the necessary requirements for each of the two sexes, it is obvious that a male who believes himself to be a female and a female believing herself to be a male is suffering from a mental disorder; surgery to remove or add to the genitalia is not what such a person needs; they do of course need skilled, professional psychiatric help. In time as this article states, the vast majority will lose their sense of confusion and discomfiture regarding their gender.

It would appear that one of the goals of the left regarding the re-ordering of society is to bring about a state of affairs where the sexes and sexuality, in the traditional sense, no longer exist.In this distorted view of humanity total equality will be achieved;there will be no men ,women,boys or girls and sex will be something which is practiced however and with whomever one so desires, with none of the traditional obligations or restrictions or consequences. I have heard at least one "academic" state that incest should be acceptable in certain circumstances, i.e, if contraception is used.
Thus the left, the extreme left, will remodel humanity into a strange sort of hybrid that is neither fish nor fowl. Obviously, like all the experiments of the left with humanity, this will fail disastrously. Everyone except the left knows it.

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George Zeit Geist • Nov 3, 2015 at 03:35

Once again you put my thoughts into words. Exactly!

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Zeit Geist George • Nov 4, 2015 at 18:50

Thank you very much for replying to my post.

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Ruth • Nov 2, 2015 at 15:54

Everyone should have the right to live as they wish, but we all know that children often make decisions which they later change. The article describes an unacceptable situation and one which is actually abusing the rights of children who need protecting until they are old enough to make such serious life change decisions. 15 and 12 year olds are NOT old enough! Heavens, Sweden has turned into a nightmare.

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TRNobre Ruth • Nov 3, 2015 at 11:16

It seems that all enviroment is being prepared to advent of Sharia's Law. What does it have to do with Islam? Islam there is no doubt about this matter. It is a shame that a country like Sweden whose background is based on the Bible, now is about to make so crazy idea to become reality. When calamities come, people shout: "Where is God?" (Sept 11 is very close to us in terms of History - many americans asked that.)

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Zeitgeist Geist Ruth • Nov 6, 2015 at 04:45

People do not have the right to live as they wish, and neither should they. We all know why. Such a sweeping statement encompasses all sorts of undesirable or wicked types of behaviour. There is no "right" to choose one's gender; it is done for us in the womb. We all know about the exceptions to this rule but that is not what is under discussion here.

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Rodney Elliott • Nov 2, 2015 at 15:43

Apart from the obviously deplorable state of Swedish sexual proclivities, not to mention the clearly depraved and warped minds of anyone who proposes the legalising of such procedures for mere children, given that Sweden is likely to become a predominantly Islamic state within not too many years, how will The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights then square their circle with Islam which unequivocally declares any form of homosexuality as being intolerably sinful and, indeed, a sin punishable by death?

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AmericanMom • Nov 2, 2015 at 11:25

I live in an area where alternative lifestyles are celebrated and encouraged. I feel like people should be treated the same no matter what their sexual orientation or other preferences are. However, there is a difference between non prejudice and celebration. I really don't get the celebration of transgender life that is going on all over the place right now. There are multiple tv and cable shows involving transgender people and they are being called heroes. This is disturbing when you are raising children. My child has a friend at school born a girl who decided she is a boy. I can't help but wonder if there was not all this celebration of it whether the girl would just have decided to be a tomboy girl like when I was growing up. Having a choice about how to live your adult life is great but having very young children taught that this is perfectly normal and celebrated is a problem. I think operations to change the genders of any person under 18 is a terrible idea.

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DockyWocky • Nov 2, 2015 at 10:26

A possible solution to the invasion of Allah worshipers has appeared.

Change all Moslem males into Moslem females by order of the Swedish state.

That ought to have them heading South by droves.

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Peter Hyatt • Nov 2, 2015 at 10:17

Ingrid,

There is one thing we can safely praise Sweden for: consistency.

They are, and have been, at war with both nature and logic and as I have learned from your writing, since the 70's.

If anything, they are consistent.

They are consistently illogical, oppose logic, and are suicidal.

They steer off path with judgement; however. They condemn judgement, such as multi culturalism demands that no judgement be made as to the additional culture's worth, but they move on to condemn anyone who judges them, the Swedish political elite, as in a disagreement.

I look forward to your articles, and check here everyday, but it is always with an element of sadness to know that millions of Swedes have lost their country.

Here in the US, there are many fans of Henrik Lundqvist and I wonder what he thinks of his country. Is he now so wealthy that there is no concern, or did his humble beginnings mean, like so many others, fond memories of his home town mingled with the pain of seeing what has become of it?

I digress.

Thank you for yet another pithy and clearly stated article on the madness of Sweden's war against masculinity, against reason, and against self preservation.

It is a warning to the US.

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Mark Hessler • Nov 2, 2015 at 09:56

Sweden. You guys are nuts (or not). Pun intended, point real.

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Geo • Nov 2, 2015 at 08:13

I will say that whoever is behind this is either evil or completely insane... Or both.

I thank the Lord that I have no children in Sweden. The more one reads of modern Sweden, the less one is inclined to go there!

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Jane • Nov 2, 2015 at 06:44

Sweden seems to be in the throes of an identity -- or even existential-crisis; why is this?

Its politicians seem determined to transform its social and ethnic make up and to undermine its hitherto enviable stability: mass migration and now the encouragement of gender swaps in the adolescent population.

What is driving this weird transformation? Is it some kind of neutrality/affluence derived guilt complex perhaps deriving from Sweden's favoured neutral status in WW2?

Is it simply political correctness taken to extremes?

It seems that cohorts of RFSL gender police will now be monitoring closely any unseemly displays of heterosexual bias!

In the UK,renowned feminist academic and broadcaster Germaine Greer has recently been roundly denounced by Welsh students for asserting that trans women are not truly female.

A pc mine field awaits us.

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montlasky • Nov 2, 2015 at 06:08

What on earth has happened to the Swedes? They have lost their collective minds as a country. Who in goverment is responsible for the decline of human standards.?

I guess that sharia law which is a hairs breath away from reality, will put paid to the Swedish dreams of an extra free society.

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